Not Writing a Love Story

I feel like I’m accidentally writing a love story. I’m writing the story of these two guys meeting. And it’s going to be the beginning of an epic friendship. And that’s fine. That’s… dandy. But I’m at this point where they’re sort of beginning to trust each other for the first time. Where they realise how much they have in common and how they complement one another. And…

It’s harder than you’d think to write, ‘it’s like this guy was built to hit all my kinks’ without making it sound like he’s falling in love. Or like he’s about to jump him.

Okay, maybe the problem is that I’m phrasing it like that in my head.

They are not a couple. They are not a couple. That one time with all the alcohol and the adrenaline and the possible concussion when they first met doesn’t count.

No, really. It might not even have happened.

I’m going to go over here now where my characters are perfectly sensible. Where they’re friends and the flirting means nothing. And they’re going to be friends. And you can leer at your friends like that. It’s perfectly reasonable to have an aesthetic appreciation of someone, particularly if they’re being all athletic and defending your hon— *cough* I mean, saving your li— I mean, hitting that guy that totally wasn’t supposed to be here because this plan was extremely well thought out and by no means created 86% on the fly and it couldn’t be helped anyway. So there.